


Nobody Can Save Me

by daydreamsonacloudyday



Series: Vira Volkova (V) [4]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28991796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreamsonacloudyday/pseuds/daydreamsonacloudyday
Summary: Johnny realizes he’s messed things up withV (Vira).
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand & V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: Vira Volkova (V) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097468
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Nobody Can Save Me

**Author's Note:**

> • This is sort of a companion piece to my last fic ["Hard to Say I’m Sorry"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28792857) where I wrote the _Chippin’ In_ side job from Vira’s point of view. This is the same job but Johnny’s point of view (though it kind of jumps around throughout the job)  
> • This is kind of different from my usual fics. Normally I plan them out and outline them (mostly dialogue, which I think is what I’m better at than like describing things) and go from there, but this one I literally just had the idea from the first line and kind of just… went with it. So there’s not a lot of dialogue and is more descriptive/storytelling which is not my strength, but I don’t know, I hope it still works?
> 
> More info about Vira can be found on her website: <https://sites.google.com/view/viravolkova-v/home>
> 
> Title song: "Nobody Can Save Me" by Linkin Park [ [listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpe4FgGDmcA) | [lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/linkinpark/nobodycansaveme.html) ]  
> (suggested by [@thegenteelblackhole](https://thegenteelblackhole.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr)

He didn’t mean to break his promise.

But once Johnny had a body again, once he was _alive_ again, he just… spiraled out of control.

Without the goal of getting V to a safe place, his old habits took over, and that was the end of it. Johnny had one last night to himself, burying his feelings for a certain merc in booze, drugs, and fucking—well, almost fucking, if it weren’t for that car accident.

It was a classic Silverhand bender, except this time, it wasn’t just him dealing with the consequences… V was there, too.

Johnny had left her body a mess, and he could feel the residual hangover she felt as she talked to Rogue. He could feel the range of emotions she was feeling, none of them good, and he bristled at her feelings. He didn’t think the whole thing would be _that_ bad for her, but honestly, he wasn’t thinking about her—that’s what he was trying to avoid.

When Rogue left and they started bickering, Johnny found himself slipping into the typical, brusque Silverhand of his past, simply because it was easier than focusing on the way wrecking V’s body made him feel like shit. It was definitely easier than feeling the pang of hurt in his chest when she refused his help to stand upright, practically snarling at him to back off. And it sure as hell was easier than holding her gaze when she brought up that promise he’d made to her, a wave of her tumultuous emotions hitting him right in the gut, making his stomach flip.

But when V grasped the dogtags he’d given her, ripped them off her neck, and then _threw_ them at him, his tough rockerboy exterior _crumbled_. Johnny forgot he was just an engram inside her head, desperate to catch the precious gift he’d given her, but they simply passed right through him. All he could do was stare, his mouth hung open and eyes wide, his chest constricting almost painfully at the sight of the tags on the floor.

V ran off to the bathroom to puke some more, and he just kept looking at the tags, swallowing hard past the knot in his throat. They were the _one thing_ he’d been able to give her when all he’d done was take and take and take, his engram eating away at her fucking soul more and more every day. They were the symbol of the promise he’d made to her, that he would sacrifice himself for her when this sick shitshow came to an end… that he was going to choose _her_ over himself, because she fucking deserved it.

She knew what they meant to him, what it meant for him to give them to her… and she threw them right back in his face.

Johnny felt like he was going to throw up, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t because V was doing just that a few feet away.

 _Shit_ … _I really fucked up_.

He disappeared into the back of her mind before V came back out of the bathroom—he couldn’t face her again, and he needed to _think_ … no matter how _unpleasant_ thinking about feelings and all that shit normally was.

\- - - - -

Turns out, Johnny had really, _really_ , _REALLY_ fucked up.

Thankfully, V had taken his dogtags with her before leaving the shitty motel, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed, because she refused to talk to him. Being that she was the only one _he_ could talk to, it was fucking _miserable._ Johnny didn’t really know what she was thinking or feeling either, since he would only get small ripples of thought and emotion from her since she kept herself closed off from him in everything she did.

She didn’t even want him to play guitar for her when she woke up in the middle of the night! The crazy bitch preferred to miss out on potential hours of sleep instead of letting him fucking help! She just muttered a "Fuck off, Johnny," and rolled over when he materialized with his guitar in hand. The really fucked up part of the whole thing was that Johnny was _relieved_ when she’d said talked to him, _said his name_ , even if it was to tell him to go away.

Johnny found himself _living_ for those moments V would let something slip past the wall she tried to keep up between them. He didn’t even care what it was, he would take _anything._ Her brief screams ringing throughout her tiny apartment when she discovered the tattoo he’d gotten during his escapade? Yeah, the screams might as well have been coming from an angel’s mouth, he didn’t care—she could yell at him all day. The fragments of assorted emotions he picked up on when she stared at that same tattoo, fingers tracing over their names in that stupid arrow-pierced heart he’d scribbled in his drunken state? Those were welcome, too, despite the worrying feelings they stirred up in him.

 _Fuck_ , Johnny even settled for the feeling of her burning the roof of her mouth on a slice of fucking pizza.

 _Anything_ he could get from her was better than being around her and getting _nothing_.

\- - - - -

It took looking for Smasher for her to talk to him again. She’d given up her silent-treatment while out searching for the bastard with Rogue, and it was a fucking relief to have her talking to him again. The night got even better when she got ahold of his Malorian Arms 3516 from that asshat Grayson—the way she held it in her hand so comfortably, like she was as familiar with it as he was, sending a pang of _something_ through Johnny’s chest.

He didn’t have time to process the feeling, because things escalated real quick after that. Grayson didn’t have any helpful info about Smasher, and when he started rattling on about what happened to Johnny’s body he could feel V’s anger bubbling inside her, bleeding into his own.

To his surprise, she pistol whipped the dickspurt right across the face with his Malorian, and in that moment, Johnny’s rage was briefly interrupted by a wave of pride and satisfaction. Hell, if they weren’t in the middle of fucking nowhere, he would have paraded V around with his chest puffed out, telling everyone he could about how she whacked the fuck out of Grayson. Probably would have tried to fuck her, too, based on the spark of desire that shot through his gut at the sight of her manhandling that asswipe with his gun.

But, he was _dead_ as Grayson had so kindly pointed out, his body apparently dumped in the badlands near the oil fields just north of the city. _That_ put a damper on Johnny’s mood, and when helpful ol’ Grayson started going off about his body again, Johnny barely had a chance to tell V to finish him off before she blew his brains out.

V didn’t feel any better, and neither did Johnny.

\- - - - -

What had started out as a hunt for Smasher turned into a hunt for Johnny’s body, and that didn’t go well either. There was a brief flicker of excitement when they stumbled across his old Porsche—something else of his that little shit Grayson had gotten his grimy hands on—but the mood quickly soured as V drove them out to the oil fields.

Johnny was ready to wallow in defeat when they didn’t find anything out there, but V wouldn’t let him. V, who had been pissed at him hours ago, started trying to make him feel better. She carved his initials into the metal sheet she sat on, leaving his mark there, and then looked up at him with those golden-brown eyes of hers. Then she fucking went and said he was the guy who saved her life, and he knew, he _felt_ that she meant what she said. And then… well, then she snapped at him for almost fucking up what they had.

This time, when she brought up the promise he’d made and how she trusted him, her turbulent emotions hitting him like a brick wall, Johnny didn’t try to block them off. He didn’t revert to the abrasive Silverhand that didn’t care, he listened to her, felt what she was feeling, and _fuck_ did it hurt.

He wasn’t used to being _guilty_ for things he’d done, and it took everything he had to face her, to push past the tightness in his chest and the lump in his throat to meet her eyes, but he did it, and he asked for a second chance. He even _apologized_.

Johnny was going soft—mostly because V was rubbing off on him—but he didn’t give a fuck. Not when saying sorry would fix what they had, because V was what was most important in his life right now.

He wasn’t going to fuck that up again.

\- - - - -

Johnny watched V drive the Porsche back to her apartment from the passenger seat, his eyes on his dogtags around her neck. She’d put them back on after he apologized, and seeing them back where they belonged made that that sharp feeling near his heart pop up again.

Their shit was still complicated—his engram was still slowly killing her day by day, and they were stuck waiting for that porcelain cunt to call them before they made their next move—but their heart to heart at the oil fields was something they both needed.

Things were good between them again, _better_ even, and he wasn’t going to fuck up again. Johnny had another chance to prove himself, and he would.

That day at the Pistis Sophia, V had admitted she would die for him. Johnny wasn’t about to let that happen, but he would prove that he was worthy of that kind of sacrifice… that he was worthy of everything she was doing for him.

That he was worthy of _her_.


End file.
